PPP lawmaker warns 'July 7 gag law' will turn S. Korea into surveillance state

People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun said politics that targets even an idol's regional dialect is a sign of the "suffocating surveillance society" the so-called July 7 gag law would bring about.

Writing on his Facebook page Sunday, Yoon said, "This is truly cruel and frightening politics. Must we now stoke division by dragging out the everyday hometown dialect of a young idol member barely past 20 years old?"

He said Cho Kuk, former leader of the Rebuilding Korea Party, had posted what he called a "guide to identifying Ilbe users" on Facebook after a Geoje-born idol member used the word "museopno" — a natural dialect expression — on a broadcast. "Branding a dialect used in everyday exclamatory or self-directed speech as a mechanical Ilbe expression is truly shocking," Yoon said.

He added that the behavior amounted to "nothing more than agitprop politics — instilling a warped sense of moral superiority in one's own supporters and targeting innocent people for collective mob justice." He said he felt "deep disgust at the practice of applying an ideological litmus test to a single dialect word and dividing the public into camps."

Yoon said his deeper concern was "the future of our society that this frenzy will bring." He warned that the July 7 law under discussion would become "a poison clause that surveils and strangles the speech, writing and freedom of expression of the people across the board." If politicians were allowed to define and punish dissenting expression by arbitrary standards, he said, "South Korea will descend into a horrifying surveillance society where everyone censors everyone else."

"Politics is the art of mediating conflict — not a tool for branding the dialect and popular culture of ordinary citizens to manufacture hatred," he said, adding that he "strongly opposes the July 7 law that seeks to silence the people."